单项选择题

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Lately，presidents of some American universities have added inflation to their worry list．They are not concerned about inflation of prices，but of academic grades．Larry Summers，president of Harvard．recently caused a storm when he told one of the university’s professors he didn’t like grade inflation．
Insiders say that nearly half the grades Harvard awards have lately been A or A minus—a lot moreman in the l980s．Is this trend a bad thing，in fact2 And is this grade inflation really“inflation”
To take the second question first，the answer is N0，not strictly speaking．”Inflation”in grades ought to mean that work of a given standard would be awarded an ever higher grade，year by year. The highest permissible grade would therefore have to keep rising in a ceaseless process on of non-improvement．Because in reality the top grade is fixed，the process is not so much grade inflation as grade compression．This is worse：a distortion in relative prices is more confusing than a uniform upward drift. Grade compression squeezes information out of the system．
But is grade inflation necessarily a bad thing The answer depends on who you are．When students leave Harvard, they carry grades as a sort of currency：a pocketful of intellectual capital，to bid for jobs or places in graduate schools against graduates from other universities with other currencies．These positions go to those who can put the most academic cash on the table。Employers and graduate schools must decide on the exchange rate, as it were，between a Harvard C student and an A student from a less distinguished place．
Again．overall grade inflation-the uniform devaluation of the students’ capital-would be telatively easy to cope with，working in principle neither to the advantage or disadvantage of Harvard graduates． Recruiters．in a position to see the market for graduates as a whole，would simply adjust their exchange rate．Compression，however，has distributional consequences．The best Harvard students see their grades devalued relative to those of second．rate Harvard students．That is bad with respect to encouraging students to work harder．

With grade inflation going on in Harvard，it is likely that（）．

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